


Migrant Labor

by accidentallymelted



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Anti-Kaiju Wall, Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 01:22:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidentallymelted/pseuds/accidentallymelted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Anti-Kaiju Wall is still a new project, and the promise of work for food vouchers draws increasing numbers of new faces to the lines every morning. Most of them are men anywhere from 20 to 50 years of age, trying to earn enough vouchers to bring home food for their families.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Migrant Labor

The first day he shows up, there is an outbreak of whispering from the others standing in line.

“Holy shit, is that-”

“No, it can’t be.”

“I think it is! It looks just like him.”

“Idiot. Why would _he_ be _here_?”

The Anti-Kaiju Wall is still a new project, and the promise of work for food vouchers draws increasing numbers of new faces to the lines every morning. Most of them are men anywhere from 20 to 50 years of age, trying to earn enough vouchers to bring home food for their families. The ones whispering are young and still excitable, still awed by celebrity. Johnson leans into the knot of whisperers and hushes them. They subside, but continue sneaking looks at one of the newcomers. He’s tall and well-built, young-looking but with eyes that appear much older than the rest of him. He ignores the looks so completely that he must be aware of them.

Johnson idly thinks that the man does look familiar, but he dismisses the thought in favor of concentrating on the assignments that the foreman is handing out. He groans a little when he gets his - as one of the most experienced men at this worksite, he gets the joy of showing the newbies the ropes. So not only will he have to do all of his own work today, but he’ll also have to check over the work that his group of three newbies has done. He is definitely not getting paid enough for this shit.

The foreman dismisses them all to begin work and the three newbies fight their way through the crowd to cluster around him like particularly woebegone ducklings. One of them is the newcomer that was causing such a stir in the line and sure enough, the other two are sneaking wide-eyed glances at him every time they think he’s not looking. Johnson’s sure that newbie knows what’s going on - his shoulders are tense, and just keep getting tenser every time someone so much as throws a glance his way. He’s not quite sure what’s up, but clearly newbie doesn’t want to discuss it, and there’s an unspoken code among those who have come to the wall - you accept the information given to you, and you ask no questions - so he hustles the three of them over to the equipment shed to get them outfitted, then brings them to the section that they’ll be working on today.

“Right,” he says, briskly. “Here’s what you’ll be doing today,” and proceeds to give them a brief rundown of today’s assignment and a demonstration of proper welding technique. He finishes by asking, “Any questions?” and is gratified but slightly worried when all three of them shake their heads. He nods at them instead. “Good. I’ll be back to check on your progress periodically.”

He heads off to the area he’s been assigned to and puts down his shield, concentrating on the work for a while. It’s easy to get into a routine where he pays minimal attention to what he’s doing, letting his hands fall into the patterns they’ve learned by heart, letting his mind wander. He thinks about a lot of different things - the kaiju, whether or not there’ll be another attack before they can get the wall up, his wife and the kids, whether or not there’s going to be enough ration vouchers to feed all of them this week - but today he finds his thoughts circling back to the familiar newcomer. He’s no closer to remembering where he’d seen that face before when he decides it’s been long enough since he left the newbies on their own and goes to check on their progress.

None of them have made any major errors, although he corrects a couple of flaws in one’s welding technique and tells another to make sure that he’s getting those bolts screwed down tight enough. He’s both amused and annoyed that the two of them keep sneaking glances at the third, who looks like he’s having an easier time of ignoring it now that there’s work to be done than he was before. He checks up on his work anyway, and gives him a couple of pointers on how to position his drill for best effect. The newbie thanks him with a nod and makes the adjustments, and Johnson goes back to his own work until the horn sounds for lunch.

At the lunch table, Johnson is sitting with a couple of guys that he knows from working on the same crews for the last couple of weeks when he notices that whispers are going around the table again. He looks up and sure enough, that same newcomer is sitting with a bubble of space around him, quietly eating his lunch. Johnson is curious enough now that he elbows the guy sitting next to him, Edwards, and leans in.

“What’s with the whispering routine?” he asks. Edwards gives him a look that suggests that he’s been working the top of the wall without a helmet recently.

“The new guy,” he says. Johnson rolls his eyes.

“I know it’s about the new guy,” he says, patiently. “Why are we whispering about the new guy?”

Edwards’ look now suggests that he might have taken a couple of falls while not wearing his helmet. “That’s _Raleigh Becket_ ,” he mutters. “Or someone who looks a damn sight like him.”

“Oh,” Johnson says, leaning back. He looks back over to where the new guy - _Raleigh_ \- is sitting. He can see it now, and curses himself for not noticing it earlier. Edwards was right to look at him like he was an idiot.

Everyone in Alaska knows about the Becket brothers, Anchorage’s very own hometown heroes. The whole state had gone through a period of shock when Yancy had gone down fighting Knifehead, and Raleigh had disappeared. No one had any idea where he’d gone, and Johnson was willing to bet that if asked, no one would have picked him as a worker on the Anti-Kaiju Wall. It certainly explained the amount of incredulous and wondering stares he was getting.

The horn sounds to end the lunch break and everyone groans and pushes away from the tables. In the rush to get back to work, Johnson loses sight of his three trainees until a shout echoes above the noise of the crowd and suddenly everyone is turning and a space is opening up around Raleigh and Jordan.

Jordan is loud and obnoxious, and everyone knows that he’s bitter that he and his sister didn’t pass the first cut for Ranger training. Johnson swears under his breath and starts trying to push his way through the press of people to the center.

“What are you doing, man,” Raleigh asks Jordan, holding his lunch tray in front of him like a shield. Jordan sneers at him.

“What are _you_ doing, Becket?” he asks. “Shouldn’t you be off _saving the world_?”

Raleigh’s shoulders tense up at that, but he forces them back down and adopts a neutral stance. “Thought that was what this,” he gestures around him to the wall, the rest of the workers, “was all about.”

Jordan laughs in his face. “Yeah, right. Probably just couldn’t hack it anymore, am I right? Poor Raleigh Becket, couldn’t find anyone else to Drift with after he lets his brother-”

Johnson doesn’t see what happens next because it happens too fast. One minute there’s a good four feet of space separating Raleigh and Jordan, the next Raleigh’s got Jordan on the ground, pounding him. He’s finally managed to force his way through to the center, though, and he takes this opportunity to run forward and try to pull Raleigh off. “Don’t,” he yells into Raleigh’s ear, hoping to be heard over the shouts of the crowd and Raleigh’s blind rage. “He’s not worth it.”

Something must have gotten through, because Raleigh stops hitting Jordan and allows himself to be dragged off. Johnson breathes a sigh of relief and hauls Raleigh as far from the commotion as possible, and the crowd parts around them and lets him.

“What was that all about?” he asks when they’ve managed what he judges is a safe distance from the incident. Raleigh is still breathing hard, either from anger or exertion or a mixture of both.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Raleigh says, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. It looks like Jordan must have gotten in at least one good hit, because there’s a small cut on his face that’s bleeding sluggishly. Johnson eyes it and hauls out the rag that he keeps in his back pocket, sighing.

“Wipe your face,” he instructs Raleigh, handing it over. Raleigh opens his eyes and takes the rag, wincing a little as he dabs at the cut. “Jordan’s an asshole,” he continues, looking up at the Wall. “No one listens to anything he has to say.”

Raleigh doesn’t say anything, just hands over the rag when he’s done with it. Johnson folds it back up and sticks it in his pocket before inspecting Raleigh’s face.

“You’ll live,” he decides. “Let’s get back to work, the rest of them will have broken up that party by now. And kid,” he says, as Raleigh turns to go back to work. “Don’t get into anymore fights during the workday. The foremen don’t like them. If you get labeled as a fighter, they’ll stop giving you work.”

Raleigh tips his head slightly in acknowledgement and Johnson nods, satisfied. They head back to work without saying anything else, and as Johnson’d predicted, the crowd by the lunch tables has dispersed back to work. He hopes that someone pulled Jordan aside and had a word with him about fighting, too.

The afternoon goes by without any major incidents - Johnson shouts at one of his newbies for bolting a support bar on in the wrong place, but the mistake is ultimately fixable. In between checking up on his newbies and doing his own work, he manages to pass the word around to the other workers to keep Jordan and Raleigh separated. Most of the rest of them are in agreement, except for a few general shit-stirrers who want to see either Jordan or Raleigh taken down a couple of pegs, so when the horn blows for the end of the work day, everyone files out without incident. Johnson is quietly pleased, and puts the word out that Raleigh doesn’t particularly want to talk about his past over the next couple of days. His news is met with some disappointment - those who work on the Wall are human, after all, and love gossip - but mostly quiet understanding, especially from those who have looked Raleigh in the eye. His eyes are full of the sort of pain no young man should know, and those who work on the wall are nothing if not respecters of private pain.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for "The Wall" square on my Jaegercon Bingo card, because I think that former local hero Raleigh Becket probably got some weird looks when he first showed up as a worker at the wall.
> 
> If you're interested you can follow me on [tumblr](http://accidentallymelted.tumblr.com/), where I reblog anything that catches my fancy and sometimes post writing updates, snippets, or prompt requests.


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